presentation-design_skill

Overview

This skill helps you design effective, research-backed presentations that communicate one clear idea per slide and keep audiences engaged. It applies evidence-based limits on slide elements, text density, and pacing to make technical talks clearer and more memorable. Use it to transform raw content into a structured, audience-centered slide deck.

How this skill works

The skill inspects your slide content, story arc, and visual layout against hard limits (max elements per slide, word counts, code-block rules) and core principles like one-idea-per-slide and meaningful titles. It suggests slide splits, reworded assertion-style titles, pacing targets, and visual hierarchy adjustments (typography, color, whitespace) while recommending which details belong in presenter notes or backup slides.

When to use it

• When you ask to design or restructure a presentation or slide deck
• When you need to improve slide flow, storytelling, or audience engagement
• Before finalizing slides to enforce readability and cognitive-load limits
• When converting detailed technical material (code, data) into talk-friendly slides
• When preparing Q&A backup slides or slide pacing for a timed talk

Best practices

• Enforce one central idea per slide; split slides that require >2 minutes
• Use assertion-style titles that state the takeaway, not labels
• Limit body text to under 50 words and no more than ~6 visible elements per slide
• Prefer short phrases and keywords; move detailed text to presenter notes
• Design slides to be understandable without audio: title + clear visual
• Prepare backup slides after the main deck for detailed tables or methods

Example use cases

• Turn a long technical README or paper into a 15-minute slide deck with clear act structure
• Optimize an existing conference talk: split overloaded slides, rewrite titles, and set pacing
• Create a developer-focused Slidev template that enforces typography and element limits
• Prepare backup slides for Q&A with extended data and methodology
• Convert code-heavy examples into a sequence of 1–2 code-block slides with annotations